In computing, a file system is often a component of an operating system used for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. Some file systems, such as the New Technology File System (NTFS), provide native support for file-level encryption. File-level encryption support is provided within NTFS by an Encrypting File System (EFS) component. When a file is encrypted by EFS on NTFS, EFS creates a $EFS attribute for the file to store encryption metadata, such as certs, initialization vectors, file encryption keys, and the like, for the encrypted file.